SEC awards more than $3 million to Phillips & Cohen whistleblower client

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Jul 17, 2015, 04:52 ET

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- A whistleblower represented by Phillips & Cohen LLP has been awarded more than $3 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for providing information and assistance that led to a significant enforcement action.

"I was very concerned about the company's misleading and deceptive business practices," said Phillips & Cohen's whistleblower client.

The award is the third largest whistleblower reward the SEC has made under its Dodd-Frank whistleblower program and the second one the SEC has made to a Phillips & Cohen client in the past 10 months.

"The SEC acted quickly as a result of the information and assistance our client provided," said Erika A. Kelton, a whistleblower attorney with Phillips & Cohen. "The fraud was such that it's unlikely that it ever would have been detected if our client hadn't come forward."

Last September, the SEC awarded a Phillips & Cohen client more than $30 million for information and assistance that exposed and ended a massive securities fraud. That is the largest SEC award ever made.

In both that case and the current one, the whistleblowers chose to remain anonymous to protect their jobs and careers. To protect the whistleblowers' confidentiality as provided by the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC doesn't disclose information that ties whistleblowers to particular actions taken against companies or individuals.

Dodd-Frank encourages private citizens to report wrongdoing to the SEC by offering whistleblowers anonymity, job protection and a reward. The whistleblower may receive 10 percent to 30 percent of the amount the government collects from the securities law violator.

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SOURCE Phillips & Cohen LLP